


Avengers Endgame fix it (A Steve Rogers arc)

by Wifefibers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Endgame Fix it, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bruce banner (mentioned) - Freeform, Captain America: The First Avenger, Endgame fix it, Endgame ruined Steve's arc and development sorry, I Tried, M/M, Marvel Universe, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve would never, Stucky - Freeform, Thor (mentioned) - Freeform, dont mind me fixing this disaster, justice for natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 06:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19245478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wifefibers/pseuds/Wifefibers
Summary: So this is my first marvel based fic (of sorts) based upon my own interpretation of what should have happened in Endgame (hense the fix it,) however disclaimer this is only one theory/representation of a fitting end to Steve's arc, and be it romantic or not Steve would never leave Bucky (sorry not sorry,) however, this fic is romance based for Steve and Bucky so don't read if you dislike the pairing.No ship hate here, it's just my interpretation based upon the Steve Rogers we all know and love.Enjoy~- wifefibers





	Avengers Endgame fix it (A Steve Rogers arc)

So they won, well...they lost but they won.  
Those who were lost to the snap, dusted without a care in the act of so called 'mercy' returned through portals and for a moment, just a moment Steve felt hope.  
Like they could do it after all, without loss, there's power in their numbers...extraordinary people with a common goal, Thanos and his new army, he had no chance.  
The purple bastard was aware of his future demise, Thor finally went for the head, and yet he persisted, to change events and continue with his plan, but his downfall started with his daughter.

  
Gamora turned against him, and from there the advance of the avengers, all them together he didn't stand a chance and this time when he clicked, the sound was hollow.  
There was no power and Tony Stark became a hero, no he always was one, Steve never thought less of him, never wanted to fight with him...and the guy took on the biggest thing he could do for the sake of the world.  
Bigger than Steve, bigger than Thor, bigger than all of them, an ultimate sacrifice...just like Natasha did.  
The world owed them both so much...and Steve as he watched Pepper and Peter be with Tony in his last moments, felt the weight of that guilt settling within his rib cage, crushing his lungs like a deflated balloon.

  
He watched because it wasn't his place to go to Tony, to go to them...it wasn't his place to mourn for Natasha but inside, god inside he was breaking, his family the one he finally found in a century in which he didn't belong until recently...was breaking.  
Dispersing like dandelion seeds in the harsh winds of reality.  
Tears welled in his blue depths unwanted but unable to be kept away. Steve has always be passionate and driven with an emotional sense of right and wrongs...and right there he felt his heart break.

  
Tony once said that they weren't soldiers, and Steve always considered himself one, but he's not the only one.  
He told Tony that he wouldn't be the type to throw himself down on a wire, to let someone else crawl over him, but the guy changed, and how wrong Steve was from the second Tony went into that wormhole, to the second he gave up his life with the literal click of his fingers.  
Tony was wrong back then because he and Natasha were soldiers, willing to throw their lives down for a better purpose, survival of their country, for fellow people...and that's exactly what they did, ensuring that they wouldn't see the new future...but everyone else would.

So yeah, they won. But not without loss, and after Tony's funeral, Steve left to honour Natasha in his own way, a funeral she didn't get, Bucky by his side as he sketches a picture of her from memory...interpreted as a ballerina, and places in into a keep safe box.  
Steve has known loss throughout his whole life, his parents, Bucky several times through, Peggy and his whole life back in the 30's/40's...and yet this one stung with the knowledge that he has lost part of his family, people that were there for him mostly, when he didn't even have Bucky by his side.  
Because he once said that without Bucky he had nothing and now without the Tony and Natasha he has the same grief.

  
Natasha was always there, and for the most part so was Tony, until he had to make the hardest decision he's ever done all those years ago.  
Now they're gone and Steve has to move on...like the others, they would want it for everyone, to take their sacrifice and make the world a place to be proud of.  
So Steve tries to get back into a routine, he talks with Sam, he spends time with Bucky, and then the afternoon in which he needs to return the stones arrives.

Taking the mission upon himself, Steve thinks through what he's going to do, a decision he made the second he saw Peggy when he went back with Tony in the time heist.  
Steve knew he would be the one to take the stones back, everyone else is moving on or recovering, it didn't feel right to ask them, so he's taken the opportunity despite its risks.  
He only has once chance, and he's going to do it, even if it creates a new timeline, whatever it does...he has to try.  
For his most important person...and to try some of the life he didn't get to have, the one both Peggy and Tony mentioned he should have.

So Steve leaves, travelling back in time, leaving those close to him behind and returning not to Peggy in the later years post war, but to that fateful night on the freight train, 1945.  
Steve carefully retraces his steps and this time...Bucky doesn't fall from the train, Steve managed to knock his past self out (again) and took his place on the raid instead, knowing exactly how it would play out and preventing the fall.  
There will be no winter soldier in this timeline.  
When he leaves, his past self has no idea why that mission was already completed when he came to, and the commandos just put it down to a concussion...Steve leaves knowing that at least in one timeline, he finally saved Bucky before he endured all the pain, so he can live that life he always wanted, be it with or without him, knowing that his reckless ass would probably still crash into the ice, even if Bucky was still around at that point (everything would play out the same most likely.)  
However just in case, Steve leaves coordinates for his crash sight, somewhere he knows Howard would find them, writing only that it's important he keep this note, and hopefully that's what the man does since Steve signed it as authentic. (Even if his past self would not know about that.)

However, even if he couldn't have a future with Bucky in that timeline, and they still don't find his frozen body until way later, if Howard loses or doesn't keep the note, then at least Bucky would have hopefully lived a full life free from pain and Hydra involvement.

Steve moves on but doesn't stop there, he does finally get that dance, plucking up the courage to dance with Peggy under the moonlight that same evening, no longer drowning his sorrows thinking his best friend is dead.  
Instead he dances with Miss Carter, solidifying his decision to see her one last time as he remembers her, but not to stay...upon seeing her in that office, seeing how far she had come, how much she had achieved...status, a family, children...she was one hell of a women, with all that to come, and Steve would never take that from her... no matter how much he held love for her, his soulmate is waiting for him in his own timeline and she found hers too (not that this Peggy knows it yet.)  
Peggy is confused by his responses, his urgency to dance but enjoys it nonetheless and then Steve returns to his home.  
/His own/ timeline, not this one, not anymore.  
His home in modern day, with Bucky and Sam and the world he had grown to love.

The captain is able to return to present time knowing there's a timeline where he did give Peggy that dance even if it was before the crash, and that he did save Bucky from becoming the winter soldier.

He wanted to save Natasha too, but the reverse could not be undone, even as the stone was returned, his friend would not return with him, but he tried, that's all he could do.  
A tear slips from his blue orbs as the crushing weight of his failure to retrieve her sets in.  
Unlike Bucky, he can't go back and save her, nor Tony but if he could he would have done it no matter what.

Miraculously Steve was able to return to his own time despite taking so many risks, however the exertion of returning one final time, warped by all the travel...took a toll on his body.  
Excruciating pain ripped through every nerve and every cell as he returned, like a raging fire burning underneath his skin...The pain gets more and more intense until suddenly light blinds his sight and then. Nothing. No feeling at all and...

Steve stumbles back onto the platform and collapses to his knees wheezing like he hadn't done in years, unable to speak unable to focus on the different voices yelling his name.

'Steve?!'  
'Steve?! Hey can you hear me pal?'

What had been mere minutes for them, had been days for Steve, and it's only when Steve looks up into icy blue orbs that he shakily sobs and breaks down.  
It was worth it, to save Bucky, his Bucky...that pain, even if the outcome stays the same in this timeline.  
It was worth it god it was worth it.  
Strong arms encircle him, and Steve realises with a jolt that he feels...so much smaller than before, covered mostly by the brunette's body, his limbs still shaking and tingling all over, spine hunched and breathes coming out in wheezy puffs.

"I should have known."

Steve finally manages to speak, breaking away from the tight embrace to back up and finally look down at his form.  
Quantem realm suit way too big for his figure, drowning him in loose material, helmet chucked to the side...Arms once muscular now thin and bony, legs small and shorter than he remembers... Muscle gone and replaced with firm bones and soft flesh.

Bucky shakes his head, emotional just from looking at Steve like this again.  
His small, feisty Steve...it's like looking into the memories he thought he lost...a film reel playing before his eyes... except it's full of colour and not at all typical of the past.

"I thought...I thought you were gone Steve."

"What part of I'm with you till the end of the line don't you understand?"

A smile, and then Steve shakily gets to his feet as Bucky holds a hand out for him.

"Punk."

"Jerk."

A loud cough is heard from besides them and Steve turns to face Sam, feeling a little awkward but no less happy to see him again too.

"So this is what you really used to look like huh?"

"Well I can't fake it."

Part of Steve is devastated to be so small and weak all over again, but he would give it up again and again to save Bucky, to try for Nat.  
He would.

Sam chuckles and Steve motions behind him to where his shield clattered to the floor after his abrupt re entry.

"There's something I want you to have."

Sam is surprised, instantly looking to Bucky for approval but he's done enough fighting for many, many years, he doesn't need it.  
Sam is the most like Steve, in his morals and actions...he'd make a great Cap and it's clear that Steve made this decision a while back, that if he made it...Sam would get the shield.

The blonde shakily holds it out and Sam takes it, slightly hesitant.

They exchange a few more words before Steve shakes his hand and looks towards Bucky, a soft smile on his lips.

Thank you Tony Stark, thank you Natasha Romanoff.

"Ready to go home?"

Bucky holds his hand out for Steve and the former captain takes it, nodding in Sam's direction briefly as he joins Bruce, shield on his arm.

"Home? As long as I'm with you I'm already home Buck."

Bucky shakes his head, though it is the same for him.

"You're my home too, but I meant...lets just get out of here, I know a place and I'm sure they'd let their best goat tender back in."

Steve laughs at that, squeezing his hand as it intertwines with Bucky's own.

"How can I say no that ?"

Home is where the heart is, and for the first time in a long time, Steve is going to follow his, he may be small again but to his delight, future assessments will show that none of his health defects have returned despite his abrupt de-serumisation and perhaps...when he's ready, he'll take up that offer to coach the new avengers.  
The offer will remain on the table, after all he'll never forget how to fight, for he is and always will be Captain America.

An end-game fix it arc for Steve Rogers.  
Thanks for reading!  
(This is only a little dip into an ending I would have loved, but there are many possibilities that others have written!)


End file.
